The Gallifrey Chronicles: Volume 1
by The Professor of Writing
Summary: This is the story of a young Time Lord and his best friend. This is the story of his adventures and the betrayals he will face. This is the story of the Doctor, before he took his name.
1. Chapter 1

**I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!**

CHAPTER 1

GALLIFREY. THE CITADEL OF THE TIME LORDS. EARTH DATE: 11TH APRIL 7000 AD

An old man rushed forward with a young woman beside him. He was tall, about sixty but slightly stooped, wearing clothes contemporary to the planet Earth in the 19th Century AD, a style that hadn't been affected for more than five thousand years. He had a shock of white hair, a serene, kind, wrinkled face that would not be out of place in a care-home for the elderly. His eyes however carried the childlike wonderment of a boy on Christmas morning.

The young woman on the other hand looked about fifteen, also tall, wearing jeans, and a thick woollen sweater. She also had the same manic energy possessed by the man beside her.

"Grandfather," she asked, "where are we going?"

"To the Time Capsule Repair Yard my dear, where else?"

"Isn't this body too old for Time Travel?" she asked, concerned.

"Now my dear, I'm perfectly within my rights to do whatever I like to my body thank-you-very-much." he harrumphed, "You're never too old for seeing new things, and besides, I'm only 238. I'll have to show you the Medusa Cascade, the 9 stars of the Castellan Shield constellation, the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza, Charlie Chaplain, oh you'd love Charlie, dear, he's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful…"

As he rambled on, she wasn't quite sure he was all there. "But Grandpa, why _are_ we going to run away?"

He stopped dead, and looked her straight in the eye for the first time in ages.

"_That_ my dear, is a very long story. Perhaps I should tell it to you, but not yet, not yet." He said, his eyes glistening.

XXXXX

The old man wandered into the TT Capsule Repair Yard, setting off a few alarms, but the old man paid them no mind. He ternderly pushed the young woman inside.

"Doctor." a female voice came from behind him. He swiftly turned round, reacting to his academic title immediately. It was rather a good pseudonym now that he thought of it. He knew if it someone he knew, she would try to make him stay. He wouldn't of course. Presumably his temper would get the better of him, he would kick and scream, but maybe, just maybe, she would persuade him. 'Goodness me, even _I'm_ having second thoughts' he thought.

"Yes what is it, what do you want?" he asked out loud, impatience creeping into his voice.

"Your'e about to make a very big mistake." she told him. Great. She would make him stay. Mind you, she was pretty. She was rather short, a good four inches shorter than him, with brown eyes and similarly couloured hair. She wore a standard enough dress, red with golden buttons. She reminded him a little of Ushas, a thought that provoked a pang of sorrow in his hearts

She smiled, "Don't take that one, take this one." she said, indicating the Capsule she was leaning on. He too smiled when he saw that she was not going to make him stay on dull, dull Gallifrey, "The navigation circuits nackered, but you'll have a hell of a load of fun." She winked.

The old man opened the door of the capsule and called inside; "Susan! Change of plan my dear, we're changing capsules." he turned back, "Thank you my-" but the young time lady was gone.

The two runaways rushed inside the Capsule The old man immediately rushed around taking measurements.

"Oh, isn't this the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, Susan?" he said to the girl, "is it?"

"Oh Rassilon," she murmured, "they said the Capsules were bigger on the inside, but I never believed… now about that story Grandfather…"

"Yes right," he said, flipping some switches, "just need to adjust the Small Hadron Collider, flip the accelerometer and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and we're off!" The ship made a resounding, beautiful, groaning noise. "Now Susan, I think it's time for a cup of tea, and I'll explain."

XXXXX

"It all began a long time ago. Two hundred and thirty one years to be precise. I was just seven years old, an initiate into the Time Lord Academy." His eyes misted over, the telepathic circuits in the room widening his consciousness, broadcasting his thoughts into Susan's mind.

XXXXX

GALLIFREY. THE TIME LORD ACADEMY. EARTH DATE: 14TH JUNE 6769 AD

The young boy entered the school yard nervously clutching his bag. He was tall for his age, but thin, with sweeping blonde hair, and piercing light blue eyes. He glanced around, wearing robes two sizes too big, as they had belonged to his older brother, Borgas.

He wandered around, trying not to look unsure as to where he was or what he was doing. Suddenly a smaller boy about his age wandered along. This boy had jet black hair and blue eyes filled with keen intelligence.

"Hullo." Said the boy

"Uh-," stammered the first boy, "h-hello"

"My name's Koschei," said the newcomer, "What's yours?"

"I can't pronounce my official name," said the first boy, "my parents named me Theta Sigma, slightly unimaginative don't you think, so it's stuck."

"Theta Sigma it is" pronounced Koschei

They chatted for a while, getting to know each other. Theta discovered that Koschei's father was the Lord President of Gallifrey, and Koschei deeply disliked his father over this. He had a natural disobedience about him, something that Theta could identify and relate to. He too found life on Gallifrey extremely dull and safe. "What's the point of being the most advanced civilisation in the universe if all you're going to do is sit on your arse and do nothing for eternity?" asked Koschei. "Anyway, when are you having you're initiation?"

"Um, I'm eight in about three months, what about you?"

"Same. What do you think of the Academy?"

"It's very big." Theta murmured

"Yeah. Is it your first day?" Koschei asked suddenly

XXXXX

THE TIME CAPSULE. THE TIME VORTEX. EARTH DATE: FLUCUATING

"And that's when I met him." said the old man simply. "The Best Man at my wedding, your mother's Guardian*, my oldest friend. Koschei Caesura." He sighed sadly, the sigh only one of centuries old could make. "I should have known it would never, never, _never_ last.

Susan leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Very soon she was asleep. The old man too leant back thoughtfully. Doctor, that woman outside had called him. It rather suited him. He smiled softly. Yes. After all, all great Time Lords had a taken name. He would be The Doctor. The man who makes people better. It felt only right, after all, he was casting himself off from Gallifrey, and Theta Sigma was a stay-at-home sort of child. Young Theta would never _dream_ of leaving Gallifrey in this way. No, that was not who he was anymore. He would call himself The Doctor formally now, as well as imformally.

_SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? NEW CHAPTER, NEW DOCTOR, AND 3 GUESSES WHO 'KOSCHEI' IS. RATE AND REVIEW PLEASE._

_*My idea of the Time Lord equivalent to Godfather. I made this up. Female equivalent: Protectoress._


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

GALLIFREY. THE TIME LORD ACADEMY. EARTH DATE 8TH JULY 6863 BC

After nearly a month of Basic Lessons, covering the Earth equivalent to the first eleven years of school, up to GCSE* the Pre-Initiates were preparing to go on their first field trip of their Academy Career. They were being taken to a Class 3 planet on the edge of the locally known 'Milky Way' Galaxy, Galactic designate Sol 3, but locally known as Earth. They would be taken to an extremely primitive point in the planet's history, allowed to wander and experience the culture of a developing world, then would leave and re-examine the planet once every 500 years (local time) over a period of nine weeks. Very soon after that Initiation Ceremonies would begin. This was an occasion where the chosen Gallifreyan would look into the Untempered Schism, a tear in the fabric of space-time itself. It was said that, while most received great moments of knowledge and understanding, some would run away, and some would even go mad. Theta shivered at the thought. Koschei stood next to him and smiled down at the young boy.

"Come on, it can't be that bad. I don't see what you're getting so worked up about."

Theta sighed, "I know, I just-y'know-I was just thinking about the stories about early Time Travel. The ones about Tachyon damage."

"Oh come on!" Koschei groaned. "That hasn't been a problem for over thirty thousand years!"

There had been rumours flying around for the previous week about Tachyon damage in the early days of Time Travel. Theta had heard that some Time Lords had gone in young, and come back looking many years older after just a few hundred year jumps. Of course, Time Travel had become far more advanced on Gallifrey over the millennia as Koschei had said, ever since the invention of the Time Capsules at the time of the great Omega and Rassilon, the _true_ pioneers of Time Travel. They had refined it, unlike the early experimenters.

Once all the children had assemble inside the Capsule (of course, it was Dimensionally Transcendent so they all fitted perfectly) they set off. Theta had wondered if there was going to be any kind of noise, but there was only silence.

SYRACUSE, GREECE 260 BC

A few minutes later they disembarked into a completely different landscape. There were soaring mountains, great expanses of space that would never have been seen on Gallifrey. Or any developed planet for that matter. The lecturer stood before them imposingly and looked down. He was tall and thin, had a face so old and scrunched up it belonged on a corpse. He looked permanently disapproved and had a personal dislike for Theta and Koschei ever since their first session with him. It was probably something to do with Koschei rewiring his computer readouts to showing images of scantily clad female Silurians.

"You will all have four hours of Local Time to soak in the culture. Remember; these people are primitives, but can still be aggressive when provoked. Non-interference children, non-interference!" he cried in his annoyingly shrill voice.

"Non-interference my foot!" muttered Koschei as they walked away. "I bet he's going to be up to some tricks with the local bar lady. Least that's what I heard from Borusa in the year above."

They both snickered.

"Anyway," said Theta, eager to change the subject, "what are we going to do?"

"There's a market down there." Koschei observed. "Let's see what these primitives have to show for themselves."

XXXXX

Theta and Koschei arrived in the bustling marketplace. The humans-for that was what the dominant native species was called-wandered around dressed in long flowing robes, not unlike Time Lords. They even appeared Gallifreyanoid in shape. They talked in a strange language, filled with musical sounds that harmonised really well. As they flew through the air towards Theta and Koschei, the words changed, becoming Modern Gallifreyan.

"That's the translation circuits working for you." Noted Koschei.

Theta nodded and closed his eyes, soaking up the beautiful busy noise of these people, talking loudly about the prophecies of their deities, beings known as Zeus, Ares, Hera and the terrible Aphrodite, whose name one human called out in anguish, appealing for mercy, after a female walked away from him in disgust.

Koschei wandered up to a stall and picked up an intricately designed pot, before replacing it and picking up another

"OI!" came an angry voice from behind, "are you gonna buy something, or just stare at my pots all day?"

Koschei turned and saw a squat human with thinning grey hair and small suspicious eyes in an ill-fitting robe glaring at him.

"I apologize, sir," he replied smoothly, "I was merely inspecting your merchandise. You do have a skilled hand you know."

The human's face immediately softened. "Well I don't like to brag but…"

"He didn't actually make them. I did." Came a softer, younger voice from behind. Koschei spun round and looked at a tall, fair haired boy. "Julius says he makes them, but he's just the boss. He pays me to make pots so I can pay for my family."

The elderly human-Julius-chuckled slightly, "Now, now Archimedes, don't give away all our manufacturing secrets, else this lovely boy won't want to buy anything!"

By this time, Theta had wandered over. "Alright there Koschei?"

Koschei looked at him and smirked, "Just meeting the locals."

"Ah, this would be your-ah-brother?"

Koschei and Theta exchanged confused glances.

"Not really. My name's Theta and this is my friend Koschei. We're new here so-"

"Theta?" asked the youth, "isn't that a number?"

"My family aren't exactly imaginative-what was your name again?"

"Archimedes." Replied the youth. "This is my employer Julius Quintinius. I make the pots, and he makes the money. You said you were new here. I'm sure Julius doesn't mind me taking the afternoon off to do a community service. After all, "he said, looking pointedly at Julius, "Hermes wishes us to be kind and hospitable to newcomers."

Julius hmphed and Archimedes nodded. "Brilliant. We'll just be off then."

XXXXX

"So, where are you from then?" asked Archimedes after showing them the Amphitheatre, the market and the Government Buildings.

"Gallifrey." Said Theta without really thinking. Koschei shot him a look, before continuing on looking around the grove they were in.

"Is that in Sparta?" asked Archimedes.

"Uhhh-"

"Yes." Interrupted Koschei. "Sparta, that's where we're from, of course."

Archimedes nodded. Theta took him in. He was not much older than they were, perhaps two or three Earth years-they had learned that humans aged much faster than Time Lords. Not that Theta and Koschei were Time Lords yet anyway. Archimedes was taller and thinner than at first sight, long, wiry blond hair falling all over his face, with the beginnings of a beard filling his face. His eyes were a razor sharp blue, and sparkled with intellect unlike some of the other humans they had seen.

He had begun to pace the grove while Koschei explored. Every now and again he would look up at the sun above them. It was a 4.3 billion year old Grade 7 star, known as Sol. Roughly halfway through its lifetime; it would continue to nourish the planet below for nearly 5 billion years, nuclear fusion driving the hydrogen particles inside into each other creating helium and vast amounts of energy. But, as Theta remembered the primitive people around him and their probable speed of technological acceleration, they wouldn't find out what drove their own creation for another four thousand years or so. Then again, he thought, looking over at Archimedes scrutinizing the relationship between the angle of the sun and the size of his shadow, maybe there was hope. Suddenly there was a roar beneath their feet. Koschei came running out of the bushes panting.

"There's something-" he began before standing up to catch his breath, "There's something in the mountain."

"Come _on_ Koschei. You know this city was built on a geographical fault line, the volcano is bound to make a few noises now and then." Scoffed Theta, looking at Archimedes for someone to agree with him, but the young human was gone. Theta looked over at Koschei who shrugged his shoulders before continuing.

"If you had let me finish Theta," he said, impatience obvious in his tone, "I would have told you that after that a giant creature had left the volcano, and began to descend on the town."

"So? The locals should be able to defend themselves, shouldn't they?" asked Theta. "Any way, I don't want to get exiled for intervention thank you very much." He turned and walked back down the path they had come.

"So you'd rather let hundreds, possibly thousands of innocent people die than put a stain on your honour?" said Koschei angrily. That stung. Theta spun round, his eyes flashing with rage.

"Oh, and you'd _really_ risk your neck to save a bunch of primitives wouldn't you Koschei. You're too scared to stand up to your own _father_, let alone a giant monster."

Koschei went red. "Take that back." He said quietly.

"Or what?"

Koschei ran forward shouting ancient battle cries. His pointed fingers came in for an Arcadian finger strike, but Theta dodged chopping Koschei's side. Koschei cried out and fell. Theta's eyes gleamed in satisfaction, before widening in horror as Koschei began clawing for air.

"Oh Rassilon what have I done," he said, before bending down to apply pressure to the wound. Koschei cried out again, writhing in pain. His hands began to glow dangerously. Theta swore, then pressed his hands to Koschei's head, numbing his mind. After a few seconds he opened his eyes and looked down at Koschei. His friend had stopped moving and-mercifully-the glow of regeneration energy had receded. However, due to Koschei being in his first body, he only had one heart, which Theta had almost critically damaged. He moved his hands over Koschei's ribcage, sensing the broken cartilage. He felt Koschei's heart slow. He couldn't stop Koschei from dying without regenerating.

"_No_" he said, "I won't let him die." He touched his forehead, then Koschei's, then his again, repeating the process repeatedly, getting faster and faster. An orange glow began to follow Theta's fingertips, encompassing both Gallifreyan boys. The glow increased in brightness and heat the faster Theta moved his hands. After a while he stopped and placed his hands on either side of Koschei's head again. Koschei had stopped breathing. His heart had only a few more beats left. Theta opened his eyes for a second, the orange glow brightening all the time. His eyes were aglow, as were his hands. He leaned forward and touched Koschei's forehead with his own. The light formed an orb of energy around them.

Koschei breathed in, taking in the orange glow. His eyes opened and saw his best friend giving his lives to resurrect him. "NO!" he cried, breaking free of Theta's grasp. The orb collapsed, flowing back into Theta, knocking him off of his feet. The grove was deathly silent for a few minutes. Then "I'm sorry for killing you." Koschei looked over at his devastated friend. "Yeah." After a few more seconds he chuckled, "Do you know how stupid that sounds?"

"Yeah. Well, I am." Said Theta, worried his apology wasn't being taken seriously.

"I know. You shouldn't have tried that though."

"What?"

"Giving your regenerations to me." Koschei said, "You could have died."

"I couldn't let you die. I wouldn't be able to wind up The Lecturer without you for one. I just had to make you better."

"What, some kind of doctor are you?"

"Now _that_ sounds stupid. You were right though."

Koschei looked confused, "About what?"

Theta grinned, "Let's go fight a monster."

**Ok, just a few things before the next chapter,**

**Time Lords only have one heart before they regenerate for the first time; it was mentioned in a First Doctor story that he had a human heartbeat I think.**

**I was wondering if Time Lords could give their regenerations like River did, but not complete the process, enabling them to still regenerate. Oh well, that's now part of the story. It's sci-fi. Get used to it.**

**I use the British system when referring to education in my fanfics.**

**Thanks!**


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